By Pastor Carmen Rizzo

I share this with all of you; because I just like everyone else struggle intensely with my formed habits of self-reliance and self sufficiency. I also share with some of you that over the last month, our Father has led me back into the wilderness. The wilderness is a place of great pain and sorrow, because there in that quiet place apart from all the noise and business of life, both God and our own hearts begin to speak loud and clearly to us once again. But it is also a place of great joy and comfort, because God in the wilderness manifests Himself to our hearts in a way that He does not when we are engaged in the business of every day life and the stuff of religion. In this place I have once again discovered that God is not so much interested in what we can do for Him. What He wants the most is that we seek Him out and everyday give Him our hearts. This is so hard for us to do, because there is a conspiracy against us. That conspiracy is such that in the things that this world throws at us, we lose our own hearts. After a time we begin to define ourselves not by what our hearts are screaming for us to see, acknowledge and live out before the world, but by what we do, the jobs we work, the roles we play in society at large. Everything that is acceptable to God must flow out of honesty about how much we need Him and how much we need Him to continue to do heart surgery on each and every one of us. The scriptures tell us that man looks upon that which is external, but God looks into the heart to see what the motives are. Do we do what we do as Christians because we love Him and see that in the end He is the only hope that any of us have of passing though this life and all of its garbage and storms with some assurance of peace? Or do we do what we do out of a sense of doing something to get something?

By Pastor Carmen Rizzo

When the devastating tsunamis that struck the Indian Ocean rim occurred, they impacted primarily three types of people:

1. Those who were completely unaware of the very subtle changes that had begun for some minutes before the devastating waves came.


2. Those who witnessed the subtle changes that announced that something big was coming, but ignored what they were seeing or did not investigate what those subtle changes might be indicating.


3. Those who witnessed the subtle changes knew what they were pointing to and immediately responded by seeking higher ground.

I have spent hours reading and listening to the accounts of those who lived through that horrifying event, and what they witnessed, before during and after the waves hit.

In our time, in the Church, there is a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith that has been completely disregarded except for occasional lip service in sanctified conversation and theology survey classes. This doctrine was in times past considered as important as any other of the great doctrines of Christianity. The Puritans wrote massive and numerous volumes on the doctrine of “Providence.” This doctrine like the others requires hundreds of hours of study to begin the process of unlocking its implication for our world and the child of God. In the 18th century with the rise of Enlightenment thought, the very subtle shift from a cosmological framework where providence was the guiding and ordering force of not only human life and events, but those of nature and the environment around us began its gradual shift. It’s very important here to understand the ebb and flows that occur during any paradigm shift. The easiest way for me to communicate what and how a paradigm shift occurs is by analogy. Imagine if you will a whirl pool of water circulating in a counter clockwise rotation. This happens because all of the surrounding factors and forces both facilitate this movement and work towards making this counterclockwise movement of water a fairly stable structure. Now imagine a hydraulic engineer being tasked with reversing the flow of the whirlpool without disrupting its motion and flow. The only way that he can accomplish this without at some point bringing the entire flow of water to a complete stop, is by the gradual introduction of numerous counter-currents. This introduces a gradual and increasing tension on the flow of water that eventually reaches a point of critical mass at which time in an instant the flow of water is reversed.

This article came to me by way of email, and is reprinted with permission. It was presented as a response from an Army Reservist, who spent two years in Iraq and was a principal in putting together the first Iraq elections, to a student at the University of Washington, who did not want to honor Medal of Honor winner USMC Colonel Greg (Pappy) Boyington. The addressee and other students (and faculty) do not think those who serve in the U.S. armed services are good role models. While the reply directly speaks to the place and need of sheepdogs in our society to police and protect us, it is even more an exhortation to the body of Christ to be defenders of the Truth in these latter dark days, and to love and appreciate those who keep watch over the sheep.

On Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs
(From the book, On Combat, by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman)

Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always, even death itself.
The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for?
William J. Bennett
In a lecture to the United States Naval Academy
November 24, 1997

One Vietnam veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me: "Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident." This is true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another.

Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.

Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.

Chapter XXX.-Let Us Do Those Things that Please God, and Flee from Those He Hates, that We May Be Blessed.
Seeing, therefore, that we are the portion of the Holy One, let us do all those things which pertain to holiness, avoiding all evil-speaking, all abominable and impure embraces, together with all drunkenness, seeking after change,120 all abominable lusts, detestable adultery, and execrable pride. "For God," saith [the Scripture], "resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble."121 Let us cleave, then, to those to whom grace has been given by God. Let us clothe ourselves with concord and humility, ever exercising self-control, standing far off from all whispering and evil-speaking, being justified by our works, and not our words. For [the Scripture] saith, "He that speaketh much, shall also hear much in answer. And does he that is ready in speech deem himself righteous? Blessed is he that is born of woman, who liveth but a short time: be not given to much speaking."122 Let our praise be in God, and not of ourselves; for God hateth those that commend themselves. Let testimony to our good deeds be borne by others, as it was in the case of our righteous forefathers. Boldness, and arrogance, and audacity belong to those that are accursed of God; but moderation, humility, and meekness to such as are blessed by Him.

Introduction
It is an unfortunate truth the Church today has fallen to the tactics of false teachers. Part of the stratagem of false teachers is to find some way to cause a break in the line of Apostolic teaching. After the passage of some time, as ignorance of true apostolic teaching increases, a different, deficient impostor of truth is inserted in place of the true Apostolic faith. This stratagem involved severing spiritual generations of Christians from their spiritual ancestors. The following epistle is the work of one of our spiritual ancestors. Clement was probably a Gentile and a Roman. He seems to have been at Philippi with St. Paul (AD 57). He lived from AD30-100. We can see from his address and exhortation to the church at Corinth. That in spite of the Apostle Paul’s two epistles to them correcting error of doctrine and practice, they went on to bigger and better things. We at Grace Baptist Church believe that the concept of revival is no longer an option to heal the disease that so permeates the modern church. This we believe is true most especially as it applies to the church in the United States. We believe that the only option is Reformation. We believe that as a local church we are called to this grand vision of reformation. Key to the great movements which have led to real and lasting reformation has been the recovery and rediscovery of the labors and teaching of our spiritual ancestry. It is a sad indication of the time in which we live that most Christians are totally unaware that writings such as these even exist. This writing is just one of the thousands of writing that makes up a vast spiritual treasure and trust that have been passed to us, a collection of wonderful ideas and spiritual insight. Thus this writing is presented to you for your consideration in the hopes that it will once again be part of a rediscovery of ideas and learning that springs from so many who have come before us and given their entire lives in pursuit of God and the love of the brethren.

Pastor Carmen A. Rizzo